I don’t know where to start describing my relationship Kaneko Fumiko.
Fumiko was a nihilist during in early 1920’s Japan. She grew up
unwanted and abused – her parents never registered her when she was
 born,
meaning she didn’t legally exist for the first half of her life. Her
dad abandoned her; her mom tried to sell her into prostitution; she
ended up in Korea as a child servant working for her colonizer
grandparents. She dropped out of school to hang out with some
anarchists, publish some radical magazines and found the Futeisha
(translated as "The Malcontent's Society," which was basically just her
and her nihilist friends hanging out). Then she was arrested for  trying
to blow up the emperor, and killed herself in prison at the
 ripe old age of 23 in a joyous affirmation of her own life and her  power over it.
 
  This chapter from “Treacherous Women of Imperial Japan”, by Helene
Bowen Raddeker, looks at the history of a woman, by a woman – a rare and
heart-pounding opportunity for those of us who aren’t dudes to maybe
connect to something a little more familiar, and all the better for not
being seen through a haze of masculine opinions.  History is  full of
dudes, right? And dudes are insipid, boring, and not relatable.
Anarchism has done little to differentiate itself from the mainstream in
this regard. Fumiko is presented as bitter, brave and angry, dramatic
and
 emotional; she changes her mind often, while also impossibly
stubborn; she’s simultaneously pessimistic and hilarious. Raddeker does
us the favor of doubting her and challenging her, while presenting
enough of Fumiko’s own words to let her defend herself and impress us a
century later.
    I know there are more women out there like
Fumiko, who slipped through the cracks of history because no one found
their words worth preserving. I’m so thankful she made it through. And
I’m stoked I get to share a bit of her words and life. In her memoir
(written during her final years in prison), Fumiko explained how society
and the world had turned her into a nihilist, by giving her no other
options. In the final pages, she writes: 

"What I had to
achieve was my own freedom, my own satisfaction. I had to be myself. I
had been the slave of to many people, the plaything of too many men. I
had never lived for myself...  I could not accept socialist thought in
its entirety. Socialism seeks to change society for the sake of the
oppressed masses, but is what it would accomplish truly for their
welfare? Socialism would create a social upheaval "for the masses", and
the masses would stake their lives in the struggle together with those
who had risen up on their behalf. But what would ensuing change mean for
them? Power would be in the hands of the leaders, and the order of the
new society would be based on that power. The masses would become slaves
all over again to that power. What is revolution, then, but the
replacing of one power with another?...One member of our group called
that view 'escapism', but I did not agree. I believed it was impossible
to change existing society into one that would be for the benefit of
all."
 

So lean back, relax, and enjoy the uplifting story of a young woman's treason and suicide.
- September